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I've painted the bottom white and am now masking the stripe bits however I don't know what size masking tape I'm supposed to use, it doesn't say in the instructions and on various sites they all seem to be a different size depending on who built them.

On eBay the sizes I've wrote down are 2mm, 3mm, 5mm, would any of these the correct size?

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the stripes may have varied between planes, and there are only a few, so yopu may wanty to ask exactly which one.

I doubt it will be a regular size, as the originals were done in metric (what's a visible size Hans, 10 cm?) and 1/48th is imperial based... get a calculator out and do some sums..

eg 100 mm divided by 48 = 2.0833 mm, so I try that to start

10 cm is guesstimate from looking at these. ..off hand I don't know which plane is which in these, I'd suggest getting a uc door, and working out a size by eyeball, and then measure that and ponder on the full metric size...

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As Troy said, these were not a factory standard,perhaps try a little experiment. Cut a couple strips of tape 2mm wide and perhaps slightly longer than the wing cord, repeat with 3mm strips and perhaps even 4mm wide. Using the pictures Troy linked, try the strips and pick the one that most closely matches the relative width in the pictures

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Im no expert here but going on the first photo you've posted. The one with the GI smoking. His hand is approximately the same size as the white stripes on the landing gear door. Now for arguments sake lets say the palm of his hand looking from above the width is four inches. In 1/48 1 inch = 48 scale inches. So 1/4" is 12 scale inches. Four inches in real life scaled down is approximately 1/12th of an inch. Now im not real good with metric but an inch is roughly 25 mm correct ? 1/12th of an inch would be roughly 2mm by my guestimation ? If im wrong and someone else knows the correct math or answer to the stripes width please help. But id try the 2mm tape for the stripes.

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Scaling off various drawings, including the ones on this Eagle cals one on this page & the Eduard pdf gives a stripe width of very close to 2mm as near as I can measure. I'm also pretty sure that no one id likely to have measured the original ones so these will all be an educated guess. Eduard shows the stripes under the tail as being slightly narrower than the wings & fuselage stripes, maybe about 1.5 mm. For me, I'd be happy with those measurements.

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I'm almost convinced that the stripes were white, as shown on every reference, but I've never quite understood why it wouldn't have been easier and quicker to mask the 76 undersides and just spray red for the same effect.

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I'm almost convinced that the stripes were white, as shown on every reference, but I've never quite understood why it wouldn't have been easier and quicker to mask the 76 undersides and just spray red for the same effect.

The colour photograph of 'Red 1' posted above pretty much ended the debate about the colours. They were clearly red and white.

There are plenty of images of these aircraft to work with when working out the stripes (there is one each of Red 3, Red 13, and Red 1 in B+W posted in this thread). I've always masked and sprayed these markings and have intentionally not made the stripes identical.

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I'm almost convinced that the stripes were white, as shown on every reference, but I've never quite understood why it wouldn't have been easier and quicker to mask the 76 undersides and just spray red for the same effect.

the same thought occured, but many late war 190's did not have undersides in overall 76, there are detailed breakdowns f the undersides in the JaPo books, which varied depending on who built them (many subcontractors) and when.